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_ ACT I. SCENE II.
Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace.
[Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a SOOTHSAYER.]
CHARMIAN.
Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost
most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you prais'd
so to th' Queen? O that I knew this husband, which you say must
charge his horns with garlands!
ALEXAS.
Soothsayer!
SOOTHSAYER.
Your will?
CHARMIAN.
Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?
SOOTHSAYER.
In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
ALEXAS. Show him your hand.
[Enter ENOBARBUS]
ENOBARBUS.
Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
Cleopatra's health to drink.
CHARMIAN.
Good, sir, give me good fortune.
SOOTHSAYER.
I make not, but foresee.
CHARMIAN.
Pray, then, foresee me one.
SOOTHSAYER.
You shall be yet far fairer than you are.
CHARMIAN.
He means in flesh.
IRAS.
No, you shall paint when you are old.
CHARMIAN.
Wrinkles forbid!
ALEXAS.
Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
CHARMIAN.
Hush!
SOOTHSAYER.
You shall be more beloving than beloved.
CHARMIAN.
I had rather heat my liver with drinking.
ALEXAS.
Nay, hear him.
CHARMIAN.
Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married to
three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all. Let me have a
child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage.
Find me to marry me with Octavius Caesar, and companion
me with my mistress.
SOOTHSAYER.
You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
CHARMIAN.
O, excellent! I love long life better than figs.
SOOTHSAYER.
You have seen and prov'd a fairer former fortune
Than that which is to approach.
CHARMIAN.
Then belike my children shall have no names.
Prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?
SOOTHSAYER.
If every of your wishes had a womb,
And fertile every wish, a million.
CHARMIAN.
Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.
ALEXAS.
You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.
CHARMIAN.
Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
ALEXAS.
We'll know all our fortunes.
ENOBARBUS.
Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be-drunk to bed.
IRAS.
There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.
CHARMIAN.
E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.
IRAS.
Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.
CHARMIAN.
Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful
prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear.
Prithee, tell her but worky-day fortune.
SOOTHSAYER.
Your fortunes are alike.
IRAS.
But how, but how? Give me particulars.
SOOTHSAYER.
I have said.
IRAS.
Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?
CHARMIAN.
Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than
I, where would you choose it?
IRAS.
Not in my husband's nose.
CHARMIAN.
Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas- come, his
fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman that cannot
go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him
a worse! And let worse follow worse, till the worst of all
follow him laughing to his grave, fiftyfold a cuckold! Good Isis,
hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight;
good Isis, I beseech thee!
IRAS.
Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! For,
as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man loose-wiv'd, so
it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded.
Therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!
CHARMIAN.
Amen.
ALEXAS.
Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold,
they would make themselves whores but they'd do't!
[Enter CLEOPATRA]
ENOBARBUS.
Hush! Here comes Antony.
CHARMIAN.
Not he; the Queen.
CLEOPATRA.
Saw you my lord?
ENOBARBUS.
No, lady.
CLEOPATRA.
Was he not here?
CHARMIAN.
No, madam.
CLEOPATRA.
He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!
ENOBARBUS.
Madam?
CLEOPATRA.
Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas?
ALEXAS.
Here, at your service. My lord approaches.
[Enter ANTONY, with a MESSENGER and attendants.]
CLEOPATRA.
We will not look upon him. Go with us.
[Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, and the rest.]
MESSENGER.
Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
ANTONY.
Against my brother Lucius?
MESSENGER.
Ay.
But soon that war had end, and the time's state
Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Caesar,
Whose better issue in the war from Italy
Upon the first encounter drave them.
ANTONY.
Well, what worst?
MESSENGER.
The nature of bad news infects the teller.
ANTONY.
When it concerns the fool or coward. On!
Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus:
Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
I hear him as he flatter'd.
MESSENGER.
Labienus-
This is stiff news- hath with his Parthian force
Extended Asia from Euphrates,
His conquering banner shook from Syria
To Lydia and to Ionia,
Whilst-
ANTONY.
Antony, thou wouldst say.
MESSENGER.
O, my lord!
ANTONY.
Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue;
Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome.
Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase, and taunt my faults
With such full licence as both truth and malice
Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds
When our quick minds lie still, and our ills told us
Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
MESSENGER.
At your noble pleasure.
[Exit]
ANTONY.
From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!
FIRST ATTENDANT.
The man from Sicyon- is there such an one?
SECOND ATTENDANT.
He stays upon your will.
ANTONY.
Let him appear.
These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
Or lose myself in dotage.
[Enter another MESSENGER with a letter.]
What are you?
SECOND MESSENGER.
Fulvia thy wife is dead.
ANTONY.
Where died she?
SECOND MESSENGER.
In Sicyon.
Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
Importeth thee to know, this bears.
[Gives the letter]
ANTONY.
Forbear me.
[Exit MESSENGER]
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.
What our contempts doth often hurl from us
We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
By revolution low'ring, does become
The opposite of itself. She's good, being gone;
The hand could pluck her back that shov'd her on.
I must from this enchanting queen break off.
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch. How now, Enobarbus!
[Re-enter ENOBARBUS]
ENOBARBUS.
What's your pleasure, sir?
ANTONY.
I must with haste from hence.
ENOBARBUS.
Why, then we kill all our women. We see how mortal an
unkindness is to them; if they suffer our departure,
death's the word.
ANTONY.
I must be gone.
ENOBARBUS.
Under a compelling occasion, let women die. It were
pity to cast them away for nothing, though between them and a
great cause they should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching
but the least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die
twenty times upon far poorer moment. I do think there is mettle
in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath
such a celerity in dying.
ANTONY.
She is cunning past man's thought.
ENOBARBUS.
Alack, sir, no! Her passions are made of nothing but the
finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters
sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than
almanacs can report. This cannot be cunning in her; if it be,
she makes a show'r of rain as well as Jove.
ANTONY.
Would I had never seen her!
ENOBARBUS.
O Sir, you had then left unseen a
wonderful piece of work, which not to have been
blest withal would have discredited your travel.
ANTONY.
Fulvia is dead.
ENOBARBUS.
Sir?
ANTONY.
Fulvia is dead.
ENOBARBUS.
Fulvia?
ANTONY.
Dead.
ENOBARBUS.
Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it
pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it
shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein
that when old robes are worn out there are members to make new. If
there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a
cut, and the case to be lamented. This grief is crown'd with
consolation: your old smock brings forth a new petticoat; and
indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.
ANTONY.
The business she hath broached in the state
Cannot endure my absence.
ENOBARBUS.
And the business you have broach'd here cannot be
without you; especially that of Cleopatra's,
which wholly depends on your abode.
ANTONY.
No more light answers. Let our officers
Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
The cause of our expedience to the Queen,
And get her leave to part. For not alone
The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
Do strongly speak to us; but the letters too
Of many our contriving friends in Rome
Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius
Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands
The empire of the sea; our slippery people,
Whose love is never link'd to the deserver
Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
Pompey the Great and all his dignities
Upon his son; who, high in name and power,
Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
For the main soldier; whose quality, going on,
The sides o' th' world may danger. Much is breeding
Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life
And not a serpent's poison. Say our pleasure,
To such whose place is under us, requires
Our quick remove from hence.
ENOBARBUS.
I shall do't.
[Exeunt.] _
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